With imagery dominant over word, the conception of the Velislav Bible follows the tradition of the so-called picture Bible. This phenomenon has its roots in the early Christian period in works such as the Cotton or Vienna Genesis, from which a series of later manuscripts is derived. In art history, the term ‘picture Bible’ (Bilderbibel, bible imagée) is understood to refer to a manuscript or book with a varied choice of biblical as well as nonbiblical events, including hagiographic stories and other apocryphal or legendary material transformed into pictorial narrative. Each picture Bible was thus a deeply considered choice of events concerning saints, with regard to its user or function. This is the reason why none of these manuscripts is a complete Bible, but only a reduced and revised version.

The text is limited to its minimal essence and serves mainly as commentary and explanatory glosses, often directly related to the adjacent pictures. The text can also figure within the images themselves – by introducing the name of the character or providing a brief appellation of a scene. The primary function of its presence is not to identify the given scene, but is deictic, that is, demonstrative or referential. The script or inscriptions, or tituli, refer to a broader context of particular images (historiae) and lend authority to the scenes by presenting their source in the Holy Scripture or some other ʻauthority.’

If we take into account the aspects mentioned above, we can agree with the opinion of Ulrich Rehm, who also extends the term ‘picture Bible’ by including psalter manuscripts, which are introduced with extensive initial imagery, the so-called praefatio cycle. In the images that precede the psalter itself, which in many cases contains yet more figural decoration, there are not only Old Testament events but also scenes from the Christological cycle, supplemented by apocryphal themes or motifs from traditional Judeo-Christian imagery.

The oldest representative of this type of psalter is generally considered to be the Tiberius Psalter, from the period just before the Norman invasion of England in 1066. The image cycle (ff. 7v-10v) is based on the principle of medieval typology Individual illuminations are accompanied by brief Latin inscriptions identifying scenes. It is not clear whether they might have been a guide for an illuminator or rather accompanying labels for the manuscript user.